Consciousness
“Without valuation the nut of existence would be hollow.” — Nietzsche, Zarathustra.
Being Human
Consciousness is the powerful comprehension of being alive. Within your world you recognize how your “you” exists. Self-recognition occurs via your sharp senses enhanced by powerful intellect. Consciousness is the intelligent cognizance of multifarious interactions regarding differing objects and subjects. Consciousness is the subjective appreciation of self.
Think about the many consequences, causes, interrelationships of being alive. We are considering the phenomenon of humans understanding the word “ontogenetic” or other words describing the phenomenon of being.
You Exist
You are you. The self describes the self while belonging to yourself. You are considering your you. This is a recognition of you being a self. Consciousness is the knowledge of you being you. Self-awareness is an alternate way to describe consciousness. The issue is existence. We know we exist.
When I write the word “existence” or “comprehension” the meaning is powerful momentousness, a mode of living where the word “existence” occurs to define our existential pondering.
All beings exist. All animals possess a level of consciousness. Human consciousness is an issue pertaining to our exceptionally high intelligence. Ants, mosquitoes, or frogs can comparatively be deemed nonentities because their consciousness is so tiny it's essentially non-existent. Life-forms possessing minimal intelligence do not exist in the powerful human modality.
I think all archetypal humans have the potential to be exceptionally intelligent. Intelligence is merely a matter of thinking. Think about it.
Typical humans have the ability to think, but a perplexing situation exists because many humans are thoughtless. The prominent idiocy of some humans causes us to “insult” them via the label “brainless” or “mindless.” The lack of intelligence in many people leads me to conclude they don’t really exist, or at least they don’t experience my powerful level of existence. Theoretically they can grasp these words but their lesser consciousness means they don’t truly understand my potent existential awareness.
Compared to perceptions of majority, the words perspicacious and perception have subtly but importantly different meanings for me. It can be confusing because theoretically I am a human identical to the majority. It’s an issue of beauty in the eye of the beholder.
Predictably, considering typical human stupidity, some people think lesser animals possess equal or greater consciousness relative to humans. I will only accept significant intelligence in lesser animals when dogs, pigs, or monkeys can create an International Space Station, 3D-printers, a new trachea via stem cells, or mechanical heart. Only humans truly exist.
Slapstick Travesty
Life for many people is humdrum. The filtering mechanism of their banal minds creates an extremely mediocre perception of life. People are typically very docile, reminiscent of Randle McMurphy after his lobotomy. They are not truly alive. They don’t know what it means to experience life, but frustratingly they can read these words then disagree. They resemble robots, automatons. They think civilization is “normal.” They are oblivious to the gibbering monstrosity. They cannot truly conceive how The Trial by Kafka resembles real life. Their lesser consciousness means they fail to grasp the meaning of “Like a dog!”
Truly conscious humans, circa 2014, think civilization resembles The County of the Blind or the Truman Show. Normal people don’t understand Steppenwolf, The Torture Garden, The Catcher in the Rye, The Fall, A Happy Death, Nausea, Candide, Les Enfants Terribles, or The Counterfeiters. People are Philosophical Zombies. Socio-political life resembles Yossarian punching Aarfy in the stomach, futile, ineffectual because the fat absorbed all the blows. Life is an odd situation.
Via Aeon, David P Barash asked why did consciousness evolve? The initial response is to state it hasn’t evolved for the zombie-majority. The deeper response states intelligence is consciousness, consciousness is intelligence, which is obvious for truly conscious people.
There shouldn’t really be any need for questions or debate. Intelligent life, inevitably self-aware, is the definition of consciousness, but consciousness is latent or stunted for the majority of humans. Stunted intelligence entails the slow progress of civilization. Tedious expositions are painfully chaotic. It resembles writing a thesis justifying every breath you take, to prove the validity of breathing.
How can the unconscious multitudes be fixed? I doubt copious amounts of LSD would create a spark of life in their minds. Cognitive gene-therapy or nanobots, to be successful, would require unacceptable severity entailing a completely different person. Perhaps a very weird piece of art could instil consciousness. Hopefully the creation of AI will succeed. If typical insensate humans cannot be fixed at least truly intelligent humans can accompany AI into Space, to colonise strange new worlds, while the meek inherit the Earth.
Meanwhile
Alleged intellectuals tell us, or suggest, our universe is likely a hologram or… Neo-religions regarding pseudo-consciousness are created. supposedly based on science
“To be sure, they also learn in their way to stride on and stride forward: that, I call their HOBBLING.—Thereby they become a hindrance to all who are in haste.”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Horse_Blinkers_%284240744343%29.jpg
http://aeon.co/magazine/living-together/the-problem-with-too-much-information/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Woit
Peter Woit, a theoretical physicist and senior mathematics lecturer at Columbia University, wrote “Tegmark’s career is a rather unusual story, mixing reputable science with an increasingly strong taste for grandiose nonsense.” In this book he “indulges his inner crank”
Consciousness by Singularity Utopia has been made freely available under the Attribution 4.0 International Creative Commons licence.
